I don’t know if this will be a grinchy post or not. But I liked the way holiday schmoliday sounded in my head. I’ve managed to get to the gym Monday and today so that’s super. And so far I’ve managed to not eat everything in sight in the house this afternoon (I was even able to measure out a cup of my leftover vegetarian pad thai from Regent and have that for lunch with a banana). I did have a can of tuna after returning from the gym just now, but that’s how that’s supposed to go.

I may be addressing the rest of that leftover pad thai for dinner later as The Rockstar is working 1PM-10PM today. Christmas in Washington, anyone? A nice hit for him at the end of a pretty slow year. No company for dinner for me though. UD Alumni Association happy hour tomorrow night. I think the last time the gang hauled out for one of these things was more than 5 years ago. I know Mollie and I are going, not sure about Liz and Julia.

This super cold weather that we’ve got this week is really throwing me for a loop. I don’t expect this kind of cold until January and I keep putting on the wrong clothes and regretting it later. I even drove to work the last two days cause I just couldn’t face it. I’ve joined the new bike sharing program in town and until Arctic Arnie showed up I was using it pretty frequently… I hope it warms up a bit later this week.

Sometimes I wind up thinking about the very different way that those of us from the Island of Misfit Toys (people who work in the theater) look at the holidays. Tonight, for example, rather than travelling to be with family or looking forward to a long weekend, we are heading to our favorite bar for late night happy hour to celebrate a day off. One day. A day that this year for the first time in 4 years that Joe and I will be going to visit the Crosiers where my brother and his family and my mom have their holiday every year. And that’s only because I don’t have to be at work until 12:30 on Friday. The last three years we have stayed in DC because I have had late days and early mornings on both sides of Thursday.

My dear pal Elizabeth will be joining us this evening after she gets done with her show at 10:30 pm. She is looking forward to Thanksgiving with her sofa, a bottle of wine, and some hard earned peace and quiet. And I’m not exaggerating the degree to which she is looking forward to it. Like some folks anticipate Christmas, or their birthdays, or the Super Bowl. I hope that she gets her peace and quiet because I am very thankful for her friendship.

Other things that I am thankful for this year include, but are not limited to:

Joe Corbin Rockstar, my mother, my siblings and their families, my remarkable friends, Katie – my phyiscal therapist and all of the super great people at that practice, Craig Faulks – the doctor who rebuilt my knee and gave me a free patellar scrape-n-clean while he was in there, Maxx and his pestilential fur, the Nats organization and their delightfully accessible ballpark, Cake for releasing a new song and having an album that’s coming out soon, bicycles -all of them, and a whole lot of other stuff.

We have ordered Indian food and will be enjoying that before going to the bar to celebrate a day off.

I walked back from the Kennedy Center tonight at around 6:30. The hot question for the walk quickly revealed it self to be “Costume or lifestyle choice?” The two big candidates were drag queen and hipster. I don’t know that any of the hipsters were actually costumed but I kind of hoped that was the case. I wish more of the men in drag had clear intentions other than “uh, there’s a costume party? I guess I’ll wear a dress.” And then there were the refugees from the Sanity/Fear events on the mall. They were just ridiculous. Did they really have to schedule those events for Halloween/Marine Corps Marathon weekend. It’s really sending DC’s population of wackos through the roof (and I know and love some of those marathon running wackos).

Satan’s Molar!!! Trying to figure out when I am going back for the eleventeenth round of ‘What’s Wrong With This Tooth”. The nice ladies at the dentists office are rearranging other people to get me back in. Never a good sign.

That is how long I have been back to work. And that, of course, is fourteen days in a row. Nothing like easing back into it. The first weekend (30+ hours in 3 days) I was living in my fantasy world where I go back to school to be a physical therapist. Because PT is totally funner than work. Yeah, you heard me… funner. Way funner. I have stopped considering how I would go about taking biology, chemistry, and physics every hour. It’s not a good sign when you spend days seriously consider just how many prerequisites must be fulfilled and find that you think “hey, maybe that wouldn’t be so bad”.

I have been trying to walk at least one way each day. I have managed the round trip 3 times or maybe 4. It’s two and a quarter miles each way. And if I don’t get the exercise there, I doubt I’d get it. I have managed to go swimming 3x since I started back. I’m very happy about that. And I swam my first full mile (well, 1600m) on Monday. It took an hour. I do not swim fast. I had managed 1500m in an hour the week prior, but this time I had a lot less trouble with my goggles.

On an unrelated note, I am becoming a wee bit psychotic about the mosquitoes in the house that refuse to die on their own or be killed. I was doing well for a while. Think I took out 5 in two days but these last two little ~angels~ are being difficult. And I am tired of the whine. The high pitched whine. The high pitched whine that wakes me. The high pitched whine that wakes me and makes me smack the side of my head so hard I will be deaf like Beethoven. I have had it with these mosquitoes.